Nick Mavromatis

Degree Holder of BA Hons in Music Production From Central Lancashires Uclan University

Written in Athens, Greece, 2013

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Introduction

This research focuses on the methods, the gear and the knowledge that are

required from a musician/music producer or a band, in order to produce

professional sounding Metal music in their own room/home studio, just by

following some manageable steps. Main purpose of this research is to prove

that modern Metal music can be produced outside of large and sumptuous

recording studios at a very low cost, providing that the proper knowledge is

conquered and the minimum experimentation has been done. We will try to

keep the expenses to the minimum.

The structure of the following document is going to be presented as it is

described summarily here:

Quick reference to modern Metal music and its main scenes and

explanation of the terminology, which is going to be used.

Examination of the methods and production values of metal music, and

the costing of them.

Guide to modern, effective and less expensive methods of producing

Metal music.

Comparison of the standard methods of producing metal music versus

my recommended, alternative ways

Estimation and audition of the final product with tracks from Blindfolds

EP Neurosis : Origins (Links at page 41)

Theory Chapter

Metal is a genre that derived from Rock music. It was developed in the late

1960s and early 1970s, originally in the United Kingdom and later in the

United States. With roots in blues rock and psychedelic rock, the bands that

created Metal developed a thick, massive sound, characterized by highly

amplified distortion, extended guitar solos, emphatic beats, and overall

loudness. Good examples and some of the first bands of the genre are Led

Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath.

Today metal music is quiet different. Due to the fact that metal music never

stopped its development through the decades, many subgenres have been

created. Until now, we count almost 4-5 decades in which metal music exists.

Some of the first and most well known subgenres that were created are

Heavy Metal and Thrash Metal. Bands like Metallica, Iron Maiden and

Motorhead to name a few, became very popular during the 80s. In the 90s

more subgenres of metal music became popular too. Subgenres such as

Power Metal, Symphonic Metal, Gothic Metal, Death Metal and Progressive

Metal are only few of them. The next decade even more subgenres had been

created or came to the front of the metal scene. Nu metal, Doom Metal,

Hardcore, and later Metalcore where some of the mainstream types of metal

during the 2000s. Which finally brings us to the first decade of the 21st century

were Metalcore, Post Hardcore and Djent are the most popular styles

according to the sales and charts.

In this document as I mentioned before, we are interested mostly in the

modern subgenres of metal. For this reason we are going to expand a bit

more on the following genres, which I present from the oldest to the newest:

Metalcore

Metalcore is a broad fusion genre of extreme metal and hardcore punk.

The name is an amalgam of the names of the two genres,

distinguished by its emphasis on breakdowns1, which are slow, intense

passages that are conductive to moshing2. Some pioneering bands of

the genre are Killswitch Engage, Underoath, All That Remains, Trivium,

As I Lay Dying and Bullet for My Valentine.

Post Hardcore

Post Hardcore is a genre of music that developed from hardcore punk,

itself an offshoot of the broader punk rock movement. Post Hardcore is

a term of broad constellation of groups. Many were inspired from the

hardcore punk scenes and others from hardcore, while infusing their

music with a broader spectrum of expression. This style became

commercially prominent in the first decade of the 21st century. Asking

1A part usually contained in metalcore songs, were the main instruments of a metal band (guitar, bass, drums), deliver a slow and intense passage.and the guitars and bass guitar are synchronized with the bass drum while playing either dead notes or open strings. 2Moshing, also know as slamdancing, is a style of dance whose participants push or slam into each other. It is most associated with aggressive music genres, such as hardcore punk and numerous styles of metal. It is primarily done to live music, although it can be done to recorded music.

Alexandria, Sleeping With Sirens, Capture The Crown and Woe Is Me

are some very representative bands of the genre today.

Djent

Djent is a heavy metal movement that developed as a spinoff of

traditional progressive metal. The word djent is an onomatopoeia for

the distinctive low-gain, distorted palm-muted3 guitar sound employed

by Meshuggah, coined by their lead guitarist, Fredrik Thordendal.

Typically, the word is used to refer to music that makes use of this

sound, to the sound itself, or to scene that revolves around it. The

movement itself emerged from the solo recordings of Misha Mansoor of

Periphery, with Periphery subsequently bringing djent from the virtual

world into the real one. Pioneering bands of the genre are

Meshuggah, Periphery, Animals as Leaders and TesseracT.

These are the three mainstream trends that prevail in the metal scene of the

1st decade of the 21st century. If we come even closer to today, we can see

and hear that these three scenes have been fused together to create very

similar subgenres like Progressive Metalcore, which is a fusion of djent and

metalcore or even Post Djent, which is a fusion of djent and post hardcore.

Good examples of these genres are bands like ERRA, Elitist and The

Afterimage.

3The palm mute is a playing technique for guitar and bass guitar, executed by placing the side of the picking hand below the little finger across the strings to be plucked, very close to the bridge, and then plucking the strings while the damping is the effect.

In general, this is the sound we are focusing on, in this research. We

described in little detail what are todays preferences and trends in the metal

scene. Now I am going to present some specific examples from each genre in

which we pointed out previously. It is important before we continue further to

clarify how modern metal sounds and the sound we are after :

Metalcore

Elitist - Caves

August Burns Red White Washed

ERRA Pattern Interrupt

Post Hardcore

Asking Alexandria The Final Episode

Sleeping With Sirens If Im James Dean youre Audrey Hepburn

Capture The Crown You Call That a Knife? This is a Knife!

Djent

Periphery Make Total Destroy

Volumes - Wormholes

Animals As Leaders - CAFO

Now lets point out some characteristics of each genre:

Metalcore:

The vocals are primarily screamed4 but many times theres a combination

of them with clean vocals5.

Guitars are always tuned lower than standard

The guitar riffs are heavy as are the drums

The use of break downs is very often

The harmony mostly consists of riffs and chord progressions in Natural

Minor scale, which is a characteristic of the metalcore sound

Post hardcore is very similar to metalcore with some additions. To make a

post hardcore song you have to remove any virtuosity/complexity you may

had of a riff in a metalcore song, and add the following things:

Make your riffs sound closer to a break down

Use diminished chords during the break downs in order to emphasize

the dissonance

4 Scream in metal music, is not like yelling. Screamers perform specific techniques with the use of their false chords to make their voice sound distorted and harsh. There are though many types of screaming using different vocalization techniques and different muscles of the throat. 5 In modern metal the term clean is used to separate the vocals that are not screamed from those who are. This happens because most of the vocals in modern metal are screamed. In other genres of music clean vocals are normal so they would referred to as vocals.

Add many synths or electronic elements such as arpeggiators with

chords or arpeggiated riffs with saw lead or square lead sounds

Add drum loops that mostly lean towards dance or dubstep music

Add extra orchestration like string ensembles or maybe pianos

Add a part (which could maybe be the chorus) with a very

mainstream/pop chord progression to your song (always in Major or

Natural Minor scale)

At last, I would like to talk about the term djent. Due to its contemporary

condition, even today there are many misunderstandings and confusions

around the term, so lets sum up and add some important details that are

missing. Djent started off as an articulation sound of a distorted/palm

muted guitar, but later it became a genre. Many times it makes use of

some fundamental metalcore elements, but with the difference that it is

much more progressive. To be more specific, this new genre includes:

many elements of progressive metal music such as : complex

structure, technique and harmonic content. Makes use of odd time

signatures

the use of the djent sound as an articulation/technique

heavily syncopated6 riffs

more groove than any other style of metal

ambient sounds and ambient guitars

6 In music, syncopation involves a variety of rhythms, which are in some way unexpected. More simply, syncopation is a combination of strangely placed on-beat and off-beat notes, used in order to disturb the straight flow of a rhythm.

electronic sounds

Also due to its progressive nature it has lots of dynamics inside a song. There

may be parts that could be considered to be ambient rock, while there could

be other parts, in the same song, that could be much heavier than most

metalcore and post hardcore songs.

Now that we clarified what each genre is, its proper sound and the

similarities or differences there might be between them, we can move forward

to examine the production values of each genre.

Chapter 3:

The standard metal production values

The goal of this investigation is the finding of cheap, yet effective ways of

producing modern metal music at your home. Before we proceed to the

chapter where this information comes out, we first need to take a look at

todays standard metal production values, and its costs.

Before we enter the studio, we first need to check the instrumentation of the

band, and see what gear each musician is going to need. A typical modern

metal band will have 1-2 guitarists, one bass player, one drummer and 1 or 2

vocalists (one for the screams and one for the cleans). For each

instrumentalist, there is a standard gear, which is absolutely necessary for

him/her in order to achieve the minimum professionalism, and the proper

tone/sound for the genre. The vocals are the only thing in a band that do not

require any additional equipment (except for a microphone) for the recording.

Of course the really successful and well-known artists of the genre, do not

limit themselves only with the standard gear. For this reason, I am going to

present the costs of the standard gear and some predictions for a more

expanded gear.

7 We see that to have a decent gear that meets only the lowest professional

standards, the whole band needs a budget of at least 5000$. Of course none

of the successful, well-known bands use equipment of such a low cost. There

are many serious guitarists whose own rig is valued at around or even more

than 5000$, so a band whose whole equipment costs 5000$ cannot compete

to that. To be more specific lets take a look at Peripherys guitarist, Misha

Mansoor,8 guitar rig as presented on his interview for Guitar Edge magazine:

7 Axe-Fx II is a digital multi-effect guitar processor in the form of a rack. It is a very popular tool amongst the bands of the modern metal scene. Guitarists lots of times use it instead of amplifiers, cabs and pedals for live situations or even for recording. 8 Misha Mansoor is the founder guitarist of the progressive metal band Periphery. He is seen as one of the forerunners of the djent movement.

!"#$%&'("$ )*"*'&'+,(-% ./#$ 012-"3(3+,(-% ./#$!"#$%&'$()*'%+& )*'%+& ,--./--- /---(.0---

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Misha is only one of the three guitarists of Periphery, and only his own rig is

valued at approximately 7849$. If to that cost we add the rig of the two other

guitarists, the bass player and the drum set of the drummer, the cost goes

further than 20.000$. For the shake of this investigation lets say these costs

usually rich the fairer and more manageable amount of 10.000-15.000$,

because not everyone owns such expensive gear.

Secondly, lets see the general costs of building a professional studio, in

which our hypothetical band is going to record, mix and master its EP or

Album. Here one could argue that the band is not going to pay for the

constructions of a professional studio, so the reason I am presenting these

costs is because my methods overtake the physical presence of a studio. By

following my methods the band can skip from ever entering the studio or avoid

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creating one since the musicians of the band want to do their production on

their own.

Also a band might not pay for the cost of the constructions of any studio

directly, but the studio is a place built with professional standards and

acoustic designs. This means that the expenses for its construction, are going

to reflect on the prices of the recording, mixing and mastering sessions. Lets

take a quick look.

These numbers equal to a very low quality studio, with cheap acoustics,

pre-amps and audio interfaces and only the most necessary equipment. An

average studio could be valued at 50.000 to 100.000$, not to mention the very

expensive ones.

Now let us value the recording, mixing and mastering of a typical metal

production of professional and quality standards:

!"#$ %&&$'()*#+",-).)*/*,0'1+!"#$%&'"()*+%$,-*.&% /000!"#$%&'"(1,*+&-*.& 20003#-4$&*, /500!$6'#(7.&*,8+"*% 9000:&$6'#()#.',% 500;*%&(

These again are again some of the lowest prices of the market, in which

you can get a decent result, so lets value the process of recording, mixing

and mastering at 2.000-3.000$.

Now lets sum up and see what the general cost of this whole process. We

have 10.000-15.000$ for the equipment that the band needs for the recording.

We need another 30.000$ to build a studio with only the necessary for the

production of an EP, and another 2.000-3.000$ for the rest (recording / mixing

/ mastering). This whole process will cost a minimum of approximately

45.000$, while the average price for all these processes and constructions

could be at around 70.000-100.000$.

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:%,/+9&'$ 7;; &?&'$ @;; #0"%+&'$

Todays technology has given us the ability of doing literally everything

using mainly only a computer. This reduces the final costs at incredible

amounts. This is going to be our subject on the next chapter.

Chapter 4

The cheap and effective alternatives

In this chapter we are going to see some of the modern ways of producing

metal music inside our houses, with affordable budget and of course less

salary than the previous, traditional ways.

Technology today has given us the ability of having digital simulations of

guitar/bass amps and pedals. Moreover, we can now utilize the MIDI

technology, which gives us the ability of reproducing the performance of a

drummer through a procedure called drum programming, by using real drum

samples, and has also created digital simulations of hardware dynamic

processors, spectral processors, and effects like reverbs, delays, choruses,

phasers, pitch shifters etc.

There are many opinions of course, stating that software digital plugins

cannot compete the analog warmth of the hardware ones. The MIDI algorithm

cannot replace the human performance etc. My opinion to these statements

will be developed through the following chapters.

The tools we are going to need in order to accomplish a professional

sounding result are the following:

A PC

An audio interface

A pair of studio monitors

A decent guitar and a decent bass guitar

A decent condenser microphone for vocals

A cheap MIDI keyboard

A guitar processor/amp simulator plugin

A drum sample library

A software synthesizer

Software plugins for mixing and mastering

The things on the list should be a choice of your own, but you should first do a

search so that you find solutions that meet to the requirements that are set by

this research.

For example your PC should have at least 4G RAM since we are going to

base our production on plugins. Your Audio Interface should support at least a

96kHz sample rate and 24bit depth. The monitors do not need to be

expensive, but you should be able to find the flattest possible in a fair amount

of money (around 100$ each is fine). Your guitar should be suitable for the

genre (modern metal in this case) and set up by a professional before the

recording. The microphone again doesnt have to be very expensive but it has

to be both condenser and for vocals. The MIDI keyboard is not even

necessary if you dont want to record any keyboards or synthesizers. But if

you do, a MIDI keyboard will save you sometime and will give a more realistic

feel to your recording in case you want to record any acoustic instruments

with VST Instruments such as pianos, strings, brasses, woodwinds etc. For

some of the things in the list, we will need to do some research first because

these are all plugins, and not all plugins of the market are suitable for our

cause, neither they are all of professional quality.

Trying to simulate a real guitar/bass sound with software plugins

1. In search for the suitable software plugin

Truth is that with a first look on digital simulations of guitar amps, I was

completely disappointed. The first plugins that came to my hands were IK

Multimedia Amplitube 3 and Native Instruments Guitar Rig 5. These two

software processors had each one some advantages and disadvantages. In

fact, the one plugin has what the other is missing and vice versa. Amplitube 3

has an analog warmth at the low frequencies, and has this bottom/low end

you want your distorted sound to have in metal.

The problem with Amplitube though, is that when you add more distortion to

your sound, the sound gets very muddy. If in this case we were talking about

rock or reggae or blues, which are all some kinds of music that do not require

very much distortion, we wouldnt have problem with this, because our sound

would still be enough clean yet have an analog warmth as we said earlier. But

when it comes to metal, this muddiness would end up destroying your mix.

For some reason the reaction of the tube amps in Amplitube, do not behave

like actual tube amps. The harmonics that seem to come out when the

distortion gets higher and higher, sound more and more inaccurate compared

to the actual thing.

The second thing that disappointed me, is that the signal chain in amplitube

is very specific. That wouldnt have been much of a problem again if I had

decided to lower my expectations a little, or if I wanted to play another genre

of music. The biggest problem here is that in Amplitube you can only use one

gate, which is fixed to be always the first thing in the chain. And it actually is a

very low quality gate, with the minimum of parameters. As we saw on Mishas

rig, his chain involved two gates at different places of the chain. That is

impossible to do with Amplitube 3. So after much experimentation with that

software I decided it has no use for modern metal music.

Guitar Rig on the other hand has a very clean sound even when its

distortion comes to the highest levels. This would have been quite good for

the sound we are after here, if the whole thing didnt sound so digital, with no

bottom and low end. Guitar rig though does not have a fixed signal chain for

your pedals, amps and effects which is good, but the digital sound it

produces, comes nowhere close to the real thing. So I declined this software

too.

The two next software plugins that came to my hands, were Peavey MKIII

Revalver and TH2 Overloud. These two plugins turned out to be very good

unlike the other two.

First of all Peavey MKIII Revalver gives you the ability to create your own

custom amps, by interfering with the circuit inside each amp. This incredible

amp-modeling feature, with which Peavey provides you, shows that these

amps are programmed to behave like actual amps. A look inside the circuit of

an amp head is enough to understand that this plugin is serious. You can

change the tubes inside your amp; you can even change the characteristics of

the tubes themselves by creating your own custom tubes(!!!). You can change

the settings on the power supply, the tonestack, the output transformer and

many more. It has an independent signal chain as well, and finally it has all

the characteristics you want your sound to have when it comes to todays

metal standards. Its dynamic processors like gates and compressors are

magnificent, though I cant say the same for its effects (delays, reverbs,

choruses, flangers etc.). The last negative thing about MKIII Revalver is that

the cabinets impulses9 are not good either. But again Peavey MKIII gives you

the ability to use external cabinet impulses loaded inside the plugin itself,

which is very good because it does not interfere with your signal chain. The

solution for plugins that do not let you load a foreign impulse response for

your cabinet, is to load an independent impulse response loader after your

plugin, which will probably break your signal chain though. We are going to

talk about this later.

As for TH2 Overloud, the quality of the sound again is really incredible. It

also has the advantage that it is the only plugin that is designed from Italian

engineers, which gives you the ability to use some very rare amps, which are

not included in any other guitar processing plugin, from companies like

Brunetti. This plugin has a very realistic feel to its sound, until the point when

the distortion is driven really high. For some reason, it lacks some of the

characteristics which make a sound realistic. The last thing thats a

disadvantage is that its dynamic processors do not function very well too, but

in the other hand, its effects are functioning quite magnificent.

So the final solution for the sound I seeked, was to use Peavey MKIII, with

a foreign cabinet impulse loaded in it, and then maybe use TH2 Overloud for

any effects I wanted to add later.

2.The signal chain/Finding the proper settings

9 Guitar process plugins always work with recorded impulse responses from actual guitar cabinets.

Now that we decided which plugins have the most quality sound and come

closer to real thing, we are ready to pass to the next level, which is finding the

proper settings and placement of your pedals, amps etc. This stage is very

important. You might again be disappointed even with these two plugins

(MKIII, TH2) if you dont spend hours tweaking, changing the placement of

your pedals etc.

First of all, we need to say that the best way to record guitars with plugins is

to connect your guitar to your audio interface, open the DAW in which you are

doing the recordings, then decrease the buffer size of your system to the

minimum so that you dont have latency when you are recording. After that

you need set up the gain of your audio interfaces input in which you

connected the guitar, and finally open the desirable plugin as an insert at each

track you want to record guitars.

The best way to start building your sound, is first of all to find a sound that

you like, from a famous guitar player or band. You have to do this because if

you start doing things randomly your sound will eventually end up being a

failure. So after you decide what sound you like, you need to search

information about how this sound is made. Best thing to do would be to find

an interview where he shows each pedal he is using, and even better it would

be if there was a video too, so that you can also see and hear what exactly is

going on. This will help you skip countless hours of random experimentations.

After you see what gear he is using and in what turn he uses his pedals, you

only have to copy this information to your mind for a start. I am saying this

because you cant ,of course, have the same gear as he does, so what you

have to do, is a small search on several things.

For example lets say that the guitarists sound you like, uses a Mesa Boogie

Mark V. First thing you need to do, is to see if your guitar processor has a

simulation of this amp. To find this you have to read the manual of your

plugin. If it does, then you need to enter the circuit (if you are using Revalver

MKIII as I do), to see if the tubes of the simulation, match with the tubes of the

real amp. To find what the tubes of the real amp are, you just have to visit the

official site of the company in which the amp belongs. This information is

always public.

If your guitar processor does not have a simulation of the amp you are

looking for, then the best thing you can do is to search again for what type of

tubes the desired amp uses, and then find an amp in your simulator which

uses the same tubes, or create one.

Second most important thing, is to find the ideal distortion pedal. Again

here you have to do the same thing as with your amp. First thing, you should

find what short of pedal is used by your archetype guitarist, and then see if

there is a simulation of it in your guitar processor. For example if your

archetype guitarist is using some kind of tube screamer, then you will easily

find it in most of the guitar processing plugins, in a different name maybe.

Last thing you need to do is see what cabinet your archetype is using. Then

again see if there is the same one inside your simulator. If it does then you

need to test it to see if it sounds good, because here we have lots of

alternatives. In case it doesnt sound good or it doesnt have one, there is

always the choice of downloading impulse responses for cabinets, free on the

internet. You just need to type the name of your cab and see if there are any

available impulses for download. If again you dont find what you are looking

for, then the best thing that you can do is find what celestion is the desired

cabinet using. For example if I wanted to find an impulse response for an

Orange cabinet but I couldnt, I would first find that the Orange cabinets use a

Vintage 30 celestion. Then I would seek what other cabinets use a Vintage 30

celestion and use one of them. In this case Mesa Boogies cabinets have

Vintage 30 celestion.

These are the three most important things about your sound! The distortion

pedal, the amp and the cabinet will give your sound its main characteristics

and identity. If you dont make good choices with those three, then your sound

will not sound professional, and there is nothing you can do to change that in

the mixing process later. Your guitar sound must be created professionally

from the beginning.

After you are done with these steps, next thing you have to do is to search

for the proper chain for your gear. To do this again you dont have to start

experimenting with putting your pedals in random positions. You need to be

advised from your archetype. For this example I am going to have as an

archetype Misha Mansoor of Periphery.

As we saw at his interview on Guitar Edge, Misha is using the following chain

for his pedals:

Compressor

Gate

Dist. Pedal (Tube Screamer)

Gate

Effects

Head Amp (Engl Invader 100W)

Cabinet (Orange)

Now that you know the most important stuff you can start building your own

sound inside Peavey MKIII Revalver. You can now make your own settings

and give your sound its own characteristics. With all the pedals, amps and

cabs you are being provided with, you can shape your sound however you

want. Of course these are simulations so do not expect them to sound the

same. Our purpose is to achieve the quality of a real sound and its main

characteristics, not make it sound exactly the same. Of course in the end you

might find that you want to change something. Probably that would be your

amp or your cab, the distortion pedal should probably stay the same, though

you could experiment with that too.

So after many experimentations and countless hours of tweaking the settings

of my sound, heres in what concluded:

.

You can hear the results of my effort in the practical outcome. The sound I

finally made is leaning more towards a djent kind of sound, but that of course

itself does not define the genre. If you follow all this steps carefully and do the

proper research and experimentation, the result should end up sounding

really satisfying and pretty real. You can follow the same procedure for your

bass sound.

Trying to simulate a drummer / drumkit with drum programming

and drum sample libraries

1. In search for a drum sample library

First thing you need to do is to find the proper drum sample library. You have

to do this first because different sample libraries have different dynamics

within the different values you can set with a MIDI editor. This means that if

you start by programming the drums first and use a random library, then, by

using a different library, you will notice that the dynamics are not the same

and that some hits you maybe wanted to sound soft, now sound more of a

medium dynamic. To avoid such trouble you need to do the programming with

the library you are going to use for the final result. For this reason the first

thing we are going to do is to find a suitable library for our genre.

Some of the most popular modern libraries for drums are:

Toontrack EZ Drummer, XLN Audio Addictive Drums, Toontrack Superior

Drummer and Native Instruments Studio Drummer. With a first look, unlike the

guitar plugins, you can hear that these are all very good libraries. That

happens because these are libraries, which contain real samples, while the

guitar plugins we are using are amp simulators. They do not contain any real

guitars or any real samples from re-amped guitars.

The libraries that I mentioned also contain their own mixer, giving you the

ability to mix your drums using tools specifically designed for drums. My first

advice here is: do NOT mix the drums using these plugins. Most of these

plugins are of very low quality and do not give you enough alternatives. We

are going to mix the drums using other more professional plugins, but we will

get to that later.

As we said with a first look, all these libraries sound pretty well. Actually

you will notice that Superior Drummer sounds a bit odd compared to the other

libraries, thinner and somehow unnatural. Thats because Superior Drummer

is the only library that provides you with completely raw samples. All the other

libraries have been mixed before they come to your hands, others more and

others less. This is the reason why Superior Drummer sounds different and

with a first look it sounds worse than the other libraries.

So the first libraries that came to my hands were EZ Drummer and

Addictive Drums. Specifically I used EzDrummer : Pop Rock, Kit, Drumkit for

Hell and Nashville kit expansions, and for Addictive Drums the standard kit

and the Metal kit expansion.

Both libraries sounded good and realistic if programmed well. But when it

came down to mixing the drums together with the song, the result didnt sound

so good. I had to do enormous changes to the sound of the drums, for them to

fit in the mix and still the result wouldnt sound so satisfying. The kits for EZ

Drummer I used were either not designed for metal or were already heavily

mixed, so when I tried to do changes to make the drums fit my own mix the

result was a complete failure. The drums sounded too fake, while they where

double mixed. As for the Addictive Drums the samples are delivered in a very

low quality and it seems like the engineers havent done very good job

recording the samples. With a first look the library sounds really good and

actually better than EZ Drummer. The thing that made me again look

elsewhere, was that I had again some problems making the library fit into a

modern metal mix.

The next libraries that came to my hands, were Superior Drummer and

Studio Drummer. With Superior Drummer I also used The Metal Foundry and

New York Studios Vol.2 expansion. With a quick look Studio Drummer sounds

a lot better, and also better than the other two libraries we discussed about

previously. The samples are very well recorded, you can choose your

samples to be completely raw, and there are many parts of the drums that you

can use for metal. Superior Drummer on the other hand provides you with

many abilities, which are not included in the other plugins. For example

Superior Drummer has a feature which if you choose to use it, it includes

different hits to your drum, even if those hits are played with the same

dynamic. You can do that with the Studio Drummer library too, but here you

have to program those hits yourself, which is going to take you a fair amount

of time. Of course for Superior Drummer this requires more memory. Second

advantage with Superior Drummer is that you can use as many parts of the

drums as you want. For example you can have three different china cymbals,

seven toms, two splash cymbals etc. all in the same kit, while in the three

libraries the drum parts you are able to use are fixed. One more very

important thing is that you can again add three different snares, but map them

to play all together in one hit. Of course you can do that with any part of your

drumkit, which can give you a very fat sound, before even you start the actual

mixing. Another feature is that you can control the bleed for each microphone

of your drum kit. For example, you can choose not to hear from the overhead

microphones the bass drum, the snare and the toms, but only hear the

cymbals. Or another and most important example, is that you can select that

all bleeds are possible from all mics. This means that if you want to, you will

be able to hear the snare, the toms and the cymbals from the microphone of

the bass drum too. From the mic of the snare youll be able to hear the bass

drum, the toms, the cymbals etc. These are only some of the advantages you

have with Superior Drummer, compared to the other libraries. So with all

these extra features, Superior Drummer is by far the best sample library you

can choose for your drum sound.

2. Learning to program drums

Now that we found which library we are going to use, we need to learn the

basics about drum programming. First thing you need to do is to observe in

detail the way a drummer plays. You need to hear and see drummers playing,

understand the basic thinking of a drummer, the dynamics he uses, when he

speeds up a little bit, when he cant be 100% accurate on his playing/timing

with the metronome etc. Also you have of course to focus in the playing style

of the drummers of the specific genre we are looking at.

If you are not a lonely musician and play in a band, then this is a big

advantage because you will probably have a drummer to compose the drums

for your songs. This though, doesnt mean that you are not supposed to know

all these things we mentioned above and more about the drum playing in

general. Lots of times a drummer might not be able to explain to you how

exactly he plays a very complex pattern. It is your job to be able to understand

the language in which each musician speaks.

So after you learn to understand the playing of the drummer, you need to

translate what he told you or show you in a MIDI editor. If your DAW has a

drum editor too, that would be even more confortable.

The biggest challenge you will encounter is to humanize the MIDI drums.

To do humanize the MIDI drums (make them sound realistic / humanly

played), you have to keep in mind the following three core details you are

going to rely on. These characteristics are the main audible human factors

that separate a drummer from a machine. So each of a drummers hit:

a) Has most of the times a different dynamic

b) Is some times hit in a different spot of each drum part

c) The timing is not always accurate

a) These are the three most important details for making programmed drums

sound realistic. So for part a you need to experiment a lot with the dynamics

of its hit in each drum part. Lets mention a few basic tips that everyone who

wants to do a realistic drum programming should know.

First of all, in basic music theory you learn that inside a certain meter within

a music piece, there are the strong and the weak parts of the meter. You have

to know that most of the times on-beat notes are hit harder than the of-beat

notes. Also the close and quick hits that a drummer may play, which are

named fills or breaks, should always have different dynamics with each other.

And because we are talking about modern metal here, we also have to

mention a very characteristic technique that is used by most of the metal

drummers. This technique is called blast-beat10, and a modern metal producer

should know how to simulate realistically techniques such as this one, which

requires a combination of programming in the three previous aspects of

playing that we mentioned.

b) For this one to use, your library should contain samples that are hit on a

different spot on itself. This is not a capability that the MIDI technology

provides you with. You have to find the different samples and put them

carefully where your drummer could have played them accidentally or in

purpose.

c) In the parts where your drummer plays really fast, or something very

complex, you should think if he would be able to play this part like a robot.

Unless he is a robot, he isnt going to be 100% accurate. This means that you

have to find these points where the drummer could not be that accurate, and

start moving the beats. The changes in timing should be really small and

careful, to the point where it still sounds natural; otherwise it might end up

sounding like the drummer missed the beats and destroying his playing.

Finding some suitable software synths

As for the synths we are not going to analyze it a lot, because it is not a major

instrument in our music, though is has a quite important role at the

orchestration part.

10A blast beat generally comprises of a repeated sixteenth note pattern, played at fast tempo and divided uniformly by the bass drum, the snare and the hi-hat, ride, crash, or china cymbal. Of course there are many variations.

Native Instruments Absynth 5 and Spectrasonics Omnisphere are the first

software synths which I worked with. Both of them are really good and both of

them give lots of functions the other doesnt have. The big advantage that

Omnisphere has, is that it comes with a 40giga sample library. The samples

contain recorded waveforms of popular synths, recordings of classic

instruments and other more abstract samples or samples created with

advanced sound design techniques. Both VSTs come with presets enough for

you to use in your productions. It would also be great for anyone to learn the

basics for sound synthesis to create his own, original sounds, which would of

course be more suitable for anyones special cause. Of course there are

many other great software synths on the market. I just mentioned two of the

most popular.

Usually in modern post-hardcore music, the most popular sounds are

created with a saw waveform, intended for lead or arpeggiated melodies, and

arpeggiated chords. Also the classic warm pad sound is used a lot when the

musician/producer wants to add some external harmony to orchestrate the

song and give more feel.

For the djent movement, the synths sounds being used are usually very

ambient or pad. Some times these sounds are used above heavy/syncopated

riffs to give a different feel, or other times to enhance the ambient melodies

played by the guitars.

Metalcore music does not usually make use of synth sounds.

Now we know the basics in order to create nice, professional sounds for all

the instruments we are going to be using. Now I am going to present you a list

with the budget of all the things I will be using to do my own production.

This is all the actual hardware and software gear I am going to be using to

produce my own EP for the Practical Outcome of this research. I also want to

say that by using the traditional methods of producing metal, the budget of

30.000$, which was set as the minimum for a production of the genre, cannot

compete to professionalism of the sound compared to my new method of

5.500$ (including cables, microphone bases, pop filter etc.)

In the next chapter we are going to talk about the mixing process.

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Chapter 5 Mixing modern metal music

In this chapter we are going to talk about my approach on mixing modern

metal music. As an introduction to this chapter, I would like to talk about the

most important aspects for our mix to be effective. In Theory Chapter we

talked about the sound we are after here, in this research. It is a mixture of

metalcore, post-hardcore and djent. In this research our approach on mixing

is going to be a combination of some of the characteristics of each genre.

Because metalcore is sonically by far the least interesting genre, the elements

we are going to be using are based mostly on post-hardcore and djent music.

To be more specific, our approach on mixing drums will be closer on the

post-hardcore method, while the guitar sound I created here has a more djent

approach. We will be using some electronic sounds that are also used in post-

hardcore music, but we will also use some ambient guitars and pads that are

mostly heard in djent music.

As for the musical part, the music I composed has elements of all three

genres we talked about earlier. This music includes break downs (metalcore,

post-hardcore oriented), heavily syncopated riffs (djent), melodic choruses

(post-hardcore), riffs on natural minor scales (metalcore), ambient parts

(djent) and many more.

The three most important things to achieve a professional sonic result, are

the bass tone, the guitar tone and the drum tone. These are our main

instruments and if you dont spend enough time experimenting and choose

the proper sounds for those three before you go into the mixing stage, then

there is nothing you can do about that in mixing.

Also I have to add that in the mixing stage, the only thing we are going to

change dramatically is the drum sound. Synths, electric guitars and bass

guitar have to sound already good at the stage of recording. Here we are

going to explain the basics of mixing drums, and how to make the other

instruments fit together and create a homogenous sonic result.

Mixing the drum kit

A typical modern metal drum kit includes:

A bass drum

A snare

A hi-hat

3-5 toms

Several overhead cymbals ( crashes, ride, china, splash)

These are the parts that are included on my drum kit. Before we proceed to

the details, we first have to explain the generals of the post-hardcore

approach on mixing drums. As post-hardcore is a very aggressive type of

metal including screamed vocals, double-bass drums, blast beats, break

downs etc., it is essential that we create a very aggressive sound for the

drums too. Main characteristic of the drums of this genre is that they are

heavily compressed, so that they sound very punchy. Now lets proceed to the

details and say some stuff for each drum part individually.

Bass Drum

The bass drum along with the snare are the two most important parts of the

drum kit. Those two are going to define if we achieved a great drum tone or

the opposite. The first thing I used on my bass drum was transient designer

with just two controls. Attack and sustain. I added 3db of attack and removed

12db of sustain and added 6db on the master gain. I did this because I the

attack is very important for this genre of music. And since this style contains

double bass drums and blast beats the bass drum has to be short so the

definition of the bass drum is clear. Also because I already know that I am

going to use a compressor, that is going to give some sustain on my bass

drum, so that would be too much. I also used an API-2500 compressor to add

some punch. Finally I added an EQ to remove any unwanted frequencies

(especially those around 200-500Hz were the body is) and boost some of the

very low (40-120Hz) and high (2.5-7.000kHz) frequencies.

Snare Drum

Here the tools I used were the same with the bass drum only with different

settings. For example at the compressor I used different attack and release

settings as the snare has faster attack and longer sustain than the bass drum.

Of course the threshold of the compressor was really heavy (around -30db).

With the equalizer I removed some annoying frequencies that were ringing

with very narrow Q and I boosted the frequencies were the body (200-250Hz)

and strings (5-7kHz) of the snare are.

Toms

The toms had almost the same settings with the bass drum. A transient

designer to give attack and remove sustain (although here I removed almost

18db of sustain), a compressor to add punch, and equalizer to boost the

wanted and remove the unwanted frequencies.

Hi-Hat

For the hi-hat the only thing I did was to add a high self EQ to boost all the

frequencies above 2kHz by 3db.

Overhead / Room mics

For the overhead I added the same EQ as with the hi-hat, plus a compressor

to give more punch and sustain to the cymbals and to even out the volume of

the snare which was a bit more audible than the cymbals from the room mics.

Other instrument details

For the guitars I didnt change much. Only thing I did was to add a soundfield

plugin called center to widen a bit the guitars and remove the center to leave

more space for the vocals. Sometimes I may boost frequencies at around 1-

2kHz to give more definition to the distorted guitars. The recordings youll here

are only double tracked (many times in metal guitar are quad-tracked to give

extra growth to the guitars) and panned hard left and hard right. For the bass

guitar I applied almost the same EQ as at the bass drum to add a nice low

bottom end and to make them sound more like each other. I also boosted

some frequencies at around 2-3kHz to give more definition to the bass and

make it fit with the guitars too. For all the orchestral instruments I added a

convolution reverb with a large hall IR loaded. For the synth sounds I

boosted/removed some frequencies to make them sound more clear and not

cover the spectrum of other instruments or vocals. For the vocals I did a

typical mix adding an EQ to remove all unwanted frequencies, a compressor

to even out the dynamics of the vocals and a de-esser to reduce the volume

of the s letters. I also created a buss channel to send the vocals with a delay

and a chorus on it.

Generally I did many automations, added some effects, loops etc.

Mastering

Last for the mastering process, what I did was to use a compressor to

tighten up the mix and give some more punch, add an EQ to bring the vocals

and the guitars a little bit more to the front and finally I added a limiter to cut

the peaks.

Conclusion

Comparing the final product made by the cheap methods we analyzed at

this essay, to the traditional methods of producing metal music I have to say

that I am very satisfied. My method doesnt luck much of the characteristics

compared to the very expensive regular methods of producing modern metal.

The drums sound very close to realistic and have a really fat and punchy

sound. The guitars sound like they were recorded with actual tube amps and

the bass guitar has the growth and bottom end I was hoping before the

research.

Truth is that when I began this research I believed that it wouldnt be

possible to create a production of almost the same sonic level as the

professional ones. My expectations were a lot lower. I believed that it would

be possible to deliver a production that would only stand decently among the

average professional productions. But with some further research and

development the results can be even better and deliver a very professional

metal production.

The tools delivered by todays technology are more than enough to give us

cheap solutions that can give a great professional sounding result. I dont

claim that my method or these tools are better, but they seem to be on a very

comparable level. With the proper knowledge, study and experimentation

great results can be achieved.

Here you can hear the results of my research. The tracks are recorded from

my band Blindfold.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuHwTpnoZE0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGTJduWD4tM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfqOsyx3Umo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMuSfdUMplg

Bibliography

Tom Breihan. "Status Ain't Hood". "Live: Trivium, the Jackson 5 of Underground Metal". The Village Voice. Daily Voice. October 11, Du Noyer (2003), p. 96; Weinstein (2000), Fast (2005), pp. 8991; Weinstein (2000) HXC Revolution. "History of HC". 2007-07-14. Blush, Stephen (November 9, 2001). American Hardcore: A Tribal History. Feral House. Loftus, Johnny. "HORSE the Band - Biography". Allmusic. Rovi Corporation "Explore: Post-Hardcore". Allmusic. Stickler, John (28 February 2011). "You Me At Six, All Time Low, Sum 41, House Of Pain & More Added To Sonisphere Knebworth Line-Up". Stereoboard.com. Bowcott, Nick (26 June 2011). "Meshuggah Share the Secrets of Their Sound". Guitar World. Future US. "Djent, the metal geek's microgenre". The Guardian. 3 March 2011. David Konow, Bang Your Head:The Rise and Fall of Heavy Metal. Three Rivers Press, 2002 Walser, Robert. Running with the Devil:Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy Metal Music. Wesleyan University Guitar Edge. Backstage with Periphery. November 2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF8hBHok2xI Peavey MKIII.V Revalver, Owner's Manual, Peavey Superior Drummer 2, Operation Manual, Toontrack